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Paul C

This is the most complete and most harmoniously composed of Cézanne's three copies after the Hellenistic group Aphrodite and Eros in the Louvre; the other two (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1987-53-59a; Chappuis, Adrien. The Drawings of Paul Cézanne. 2 vols. Greenwich, Conn., 1973, no. 1043) terminate the figure of Aphrodite at the knees and barely indicate that of Eros, so that the touching relationship between them is not apparent. Yet just this exchange between mother and child, which makes the Hellenistic group an ancient counterpart to Pigalle's Love and Friendship, a work Cézanne also copied several times (see Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1987-53-50a), may well have been what attracted him in the first place. In any event, it is clear that by choosing a vantage point slightly to the left of the one chosen for the other copies, he has achieved here a more harmonious integration of the two figures, despite their great difference in size. Theodore Reff, from Paul Cézanne: Two Sketchbooks (1989), p. 208.